


the glowing hill, I will conquer

by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication)



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, Evil Corporations, F/F, Happy Sex, JA Secret Santa, Master/Servant, Romance, Space capitalism, jupiter isn't the only one who has a thing for lycantants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:22:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9076294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/bemusedlybespectacled
Summary: Seraphi Abrasax takes her empire, with her first supporter at her side.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My (terribly late, because I suck) Secret Santa gift for witchascending! My prompt was "Seraphi + same-sex romance, romance, empire, warlord." I kind of suck at war and made it more corporate instead, but with a war vibe. Title is from a Florence + The Machine lyric because of course it's from Florence + The Machine, did you think I know how to make titles? Well, I do not.

Seraphi Abrasax did not inherit her empire. There was nothing to inherit.

The expansion - not great, not yet - had only started a few millennia before. The serum had been synthesized only a millennium before that. And "Abrasax" was no great name, with few holdings and no titles.

She studied history first, to learn from others' mistakes. Then engineering: first mechanical, then genetic. She joined Arctus Enterprises at fifty, got her first dose of serum at one hundred. By the time she needed the second, she had formed her own company.

Seraphi Abrasax did not inherit her empire. She took it.

* * *

 "Well, tonight should be fun," Seraphi says, putting another jeweled flower in her hair.

"What part, specifically? Because I know _I'm_ looking forward to you crushing Amator Papirius' dreams of ever controlling more than a fraction of a percent of the market share." A kiss to her neck, in front of the mirror.

Seraphi chuckles, a little breathily. "He does get the _silliest_ expressions on his face when he's angry, doesn't he?"

"I was thinking more about how you'll look when he's beaten."

"Flatterer."

"I tell only the truth. _My lady_."

"Well," Seraphi says with another laugh, "at least I know I have one person who supports me."

Aurea is on the shorter end for a lycantant, only a few inches above six feet, wearing a deceptively flimsy-looking gown that Seraphi knows hides full body armor, a holoshield, a blaster, and at least seven knives. But she bends down to kiss Seraphi, properly this time. "As if I wouldn't," she says, when they come up for air.

"I know," Seraphi says. She brushes a stray lock of Aurea's hair behind her ear, securing it with one of her own jeweled pins from the vanity. "What would I do without you?"

* * *

"He's asking about you again," Aurea says, sweeping into the room with a tea tray.

"Good morning to you, too," Seraphi says dryly, letting orange silk sheets pool around her hips as she sits up in bed. "Who's been asking about me?"

"Vibian Aburia," Aurea replies, as if the name itself repulses her. "He sent an FTL to ask when you'd be free for an audience. He was very insistent."

Seraphi gets out of bed to sit at her desk, not bothering with even a robe. "He probably wants to ask me nicely to not take his holdings in the Mizar system."

"Or he wants to woo you again."

Seraphi shrugs, somehow managing to look elegant despite her utter nakedness. "Is it so bad if he does? I _am_ willing to send more troops to Mizar if my lawyers can't persuade him to part with them, but if he _gives_ them to me instead, that would be so much– oh."

Vulnerability looks awkward on Aurea, but it's still there, as plainly as if she'd written the word across her face. Seraphi moves in her chair over so that Aurea can sit next to her, turning to cup her face in her hand. "I'm sorry. That was too cavalier, I know. But you know why I can't– I'm not– so much is riding on this. I can't turn people down and say, 'Oh, sorry, I'm actually already with someone. You know my bodyguard, the lycantant?' Even just being single–it's just easier this way, you know?"

"I know," Aurea says. "And I know one day you'll have to marry, have heirs, all that. I just hate being reminded that someday some, some _Entitled_ might take you away from me."

"Lots of things might take me away," Seraphi says, "but no Entitled will." 

* * *

 "You pick the next one," Seraphi says. She's standing over the holo display, the projected stars and planets like jewels around her, adorning her hair and winking in the folds of her robe. "Tell me which one you want."

"Which one _I_ want?" asks Aurea, still sprawled lazily on the bed.

"Of course," Seraphi says. "Look, we've got all these–" she outlines three star systems close to the Canubulum system, "we've got Mizar and Zalintyre, and we've just added, oh, most of this." She waves a hand in the direction of a cluster of planets. "So you get to pick the next one."

"For you to add to your collection?"

"No. Well, only somewhat. It will be mine, but really it will be yours. We'll both know it's really yours."

"What would I do with a planet?" Aurea asks. "I'm not Entitled."

"Neither am I, yet," Seraphi reminds her. "But if I take one more system... not all the planets need to be suitable for Harvesting, you know. It's just about the land. I might be able to claim Entitlement. I just need, oh, five or six decently-sized planets."

"So you do just want another system to add to your collection."

"What I want," Seraphi says, "is for you to pick the jewel in my crown. The keystone to all I've worked on. And I know that Papirius and his ilk don't think I'm worthy of being in the same room as them, let alone worth a Title. But I could be a queen, dearest. One more holding and I could."

"You already are," Aurea says. "To me, I mean."

"Then choose the system that will show everyone else."

Aurea stands up, wrapping the top sheet around her. "Oh, _fine_." She pads over to the display in her bare feet, dwarfing it by a good six inches. With a wave of her hand, it expands, until both of them are standing in the tiny fraction of the known universe that is Seraphi's. She turns it, as she would a globe, searching. Finally, her hand comes to rest on a single yellow star, not too far from Seraphi's new acquisitions, but distant enough that, despite the tiny label that says that one of the planets has already been seeded, no one has bothered to name it.

"This one," Aurea says.

Seraphi wraps her hands around Aurea's waist. "Let's take it, then."

* * *

The night of her victory, Seraphi sets off fireworks from her alcazar on Midian. Standing on the balcony, overlooking the lake below her, she doesn't notice Aurea until the other woman is almost on top of her.

"Lovely fireworks," Aurea whispers in her ear. Seraphi jumps. "Not as lovely as you, though."

"Flatterer," Seraphi says. "And don't scare me like that."

"I speak only the truth. And the truth is that you shouldn't let me sneak up on you. _Your majesty_."

"It's your job to protect me from intruders," Seraphi reminds her. "And– wait. Say that again. Just the 'your majesty' part."

Aurea quickly suppresses a smile, schooling her face into a more serious expression. "Your majesty," she says, in deep, hushed tones.

"You know, I don't think I'm entirely used to it yet. The title. I've been called 'my lady' for three millennia, it's so strange to hear something different now. But when you say it..." She grins. "I don't know."

"You deserve it," Aurea says. "And, if your majesty permits me to..." She kisses Seraphi's shoulder. "I will keep calling her that..." She kisses her neck–Seraphi's eyes flutter shut– "...so long as it's true."

"So only until my empire falls, is that it?" Seraphi asks, laughter in her voice. "I'll endeavor to keep it, then."

Aurea doesn't laugh. Instead, she sinks to one knee, a strange solemnity on her face. "No." She takes one of Seraphi's hands in her own, holding it to her lips. "I've told you, you'll always be a queen to me. Even if your stock prices fall and your assets are lost and you have nothing. You're still my queen, your majesty."

Seraphi doesn't know how to answer that. Instead she bends to kiss her, taking her face in both hands. Then she takes her hand and draws her up, walking backwards until her legs hit the bed.

They've been together for more than a thousand years, but this time it feels different. Seraphi unwraps Aurea's gown, watches the lights from the fireworks play across her skin. A red spark on her collarbone, a green flash at her throat. Seraphi kisses each of them in turn, licks the blue light at her breast, bites hard on where her neck meets her shoulder in the dark second in between. It's heady, her new power, but familiar, somehow. Two of her fingers find their way between Aurea's legs and find her already wet.

"That was fast," Seraphi says, plunging them in, moving inside her with a thousand years of practice.

"Since I saw you– on the balcony," Aurea gasps, "always, for you–"

Her cry is drowned out by the chorus of fireworks.

Later, in the quiet darkness, Aurea says, "You know, eventually you will have to go back down to your guests."

"I'm the queen," Seraphi says, "I can do what I want," and to prove it, she takes the first of her subjects again, like she's taken her empire, slowly and without mercy.

**Author's Note:**

> In keeping with my headcanon that all lycantants look like MMA fighters, in my head Aurea looks like [Claudia Gadelha](http://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/24807-claudia-gadelha), but of course you're free to imagine her however you like so long as she's 6'4" and built like a brick house.
> 
> In case it wasn't abundantly clear, the star system that Seraphi takes to cement her empire is our solar system.
> 
> Originally this was going to be 1000 words longer. However, all 1000 of those words would have been after the sex and entirely downhill in an epic tragedy befitting the setting, but then I thought, "No. I am lazy and also I want a happy ending." So we'll just ignore the fact that Seraphi was "unlucky in love" and leave the queer space ladies alone.


End file.
